Yeh, I totally agree with Ben. 
The galv fumes from welding speed the heart up.
Just use paint and then you wont be heart broken when you have to alter something, or it gets chipped/rubbed while transporting it.
It's very easy to touch up later on if you so desire.
I give them a coat of "Cold Galvanizing" from a spray can and a top coat of a coloured gloss (spray can) to seal it.
I would stretch a bit of old bike tube over the adjustable front end, or bind it with tape to keep the crud out.
It's progressing well.
Looking good so far Tryhard. Agree with others about painting.
One error though. How are you going to attach the seat over the top of the frame with that bar attached to the mast post in the way? Get rid of that.
The mast post does not need that for support if the welding is good. Add a small gusset at the base of the mast post if you are worried about the weld.
Greetings Clem.I plan to slide the seat under that bar.It wasn't to support the mast.The pedal bar fits inside it and slides back and forth. I'll do a dry fit and show you what I had in mind. My boatbuilder expert who is fixing my mast (see previous post) is riveting some aluminium section onto the boom bits so I can make a slouch seat out of it.Here are some pics of the build sanded and painted with the zinc paint. The can says I need to apply primer over that before top coating.Is that necessary?
The only time I have primed over a zinc base is if I'm going for a very light coloured gloss top coat.
Most yellows, light colours, particularly white and also some of the fluro colours need a white base to get the most out of the top gloss.
The zinc seems to make it very dull as it seems to absorb the pigment and takes many coats to cover. It then darkens the colour up.
I think the thinners out of the top coat soften the base zinc coat as it's porous and they blend a bit.
If it's a darker top gloss coat I never bother.
Here's a problem.The front end is too low to the ground once I assembled the bits.From my calculations the spine should be about 5.5 inches from the ground.Anyway the fork assembly will need to be repositioned.Now I see why powder coating etc shouldn't be done too early!
Here's a down and dirty look at the mistake.What I should have done is checked the assembly when everything was tacked.Now the job of dismantling is bigger
Yes I can see that now. Good idea. so maybe you're legs are shorter than mine, or you plan to sit further back than I do. Anyways you can always adjust that position of the foot peddle later with the disk grinder and a spray can of touch up paint...
Getting the geometry right in the front can be tricky It looks as though yours can be easily fixed by cutting the welds at the forks/u bracket and re welding them on angled down more
Wattyl Kilrust paint is what I use on these things from Mitre10 Primer undercoat and topcoat in one hit durable stuff too
Impressed with your build so far I have used ski axles twice on minis and like them but I have reservations on using them angled back as I don't know how they will resist the twisting loads If they twist then the alignment will alter and make for an interesting ride especially if you are a big guy
It. should be noted that Clem is a featherweight so it might not apply to him 
Not sure if anyone mentioned we use 2 layers of ski on each axial. If you find it too soft just add a third. The offset of the y angle to the centre of the wheel should counter balance the twist action.
I did a rough experiment today by clamping two sections of skis face to face to my workbench with an overhang of 400 mm and put a load on the end offset to the centreline at 150mm
The overhang axle length at 400 mm is shorter than shown on the drawing which is about 600mm The offset of 150mm is close to what is shown on the drawing axle centre to tyre centre With a load applied [my right foot in a loop of rope]
The skis deflected down as expected but crucially twisted at least 10 degrees with at a guess 40 to 50 kgs load
My guess is if the yacht lifts a wheel the wheel on the ground is going to toe out maybe half the angle of twist due to the axle being at 45 degrees to the centreline
Am I right or am I missing something here ? The load on that wheel could well be 100kg in that situation and the twist would be greater than what I saw on my bench as the axle is longer as well
This is a lot of guess work on my part maybe someone can figure it out better than I but it seems to me the
centreline of the axle needs to meet the verticle centreline of the wheel to keep the rear wheels aligned
I cut through the welds with various tools and repositioned the front assembly thus,to be welded again
That front end looks better now. I weigh 96 kgs and use 2 skis on my minis and they are great but my axles are straight across and are shorter than your angled ones I still think 2 will be Ok though
Skis vary in thickness along their length you could try and cut them from the thickest part mine are quite thin at the
wheel end
Hiko, Have you taken into consideration that the twisting force acting of the skis is not a simple vertical force but at an an angle to the skis as while in motion there is also a side force acting on the windward wheel trying to make it toe in. Perhaps we need to test our theories on the beach.
Yes think you may need 3 skis at 90 kgs as I am only 60kg.
Select to expand quoteClemco said..
Hiko, Have you taken into consideration that the twisting force acting of the skis is not a simple vertical force but at an an angle to the skis as while in motion there is also a side force acting on the windward wheel trying to make it toe in. Perhaps we need to test our theories on the beach.
Yes think you may need 3 skis at 90 kgs as I am only 60kg.
There is probably quite a lot of things I haven't considered I do struggle to understand most of it actually
I'll try 2 skis. Next questions:
1.what size is the boom?
2.Why are there 2 blocks for the mainsheet?
Tryhard it maybe an optical illusion but it looks as though your foot pedals are rather far back If you put your butt just in front of where the rear wheels will be are the pedals in a comfortable position?
Q1 The design you have chosen has centre sheeting so the boom needs to be 100mm or so longer than the foot of the biggest sail you are going to use and stiff enough to take the sheet loads in the centre which will be you heaving on the purchase of two double pulleys as a minimum
An aluminium tube of 40 or 50 mm and 2mm or so wall will be somewhere near what you need and pulleys of 40 or 50 mm diameter that can take 10mm braid
Try and get dinghy sheet braid as it is softer and has less friction in the blocks than normal braid
Keep us posted of progress
Cheers Hiko
A trick for "softer" braid - washing in fabric softener makes it extra flexible, great for most sheets. Used to do it to all my abseiling and climbing ropes.
Select to expand quoteTest pilot 1 said..
A trick for "softer" braid - washing in fabric softener makes it extra flexible, great for most sheets. Used to do it to all my abseiling and climbing ropes.
Good tip !
the front end welded up again.Here's a tip.Getting the parts right for welding is much easier than cutting through welds
But I discovered a very curious thing.This arm of the axle is 20mm shorter than the other even though the rig is square.Am I missing something here?
And yes I think he is correct,The styley socks were a stocking filler.I'll cut a bit off
Does it matter if one leg of the axle is a bit shorter than the other provided the axles themselves line up and the rest of the assembly is square?
MIGHT MAKE IT SAIL BETTER IN ONE DIRECTION THAN ANOTHER IN VARIOUS WIND DIRECTIONS
I dithered over the shorter axle issue until I remembered seeing an earlier posting of Clems where he tested his rig for toe in under load.So I set up something similar to test for square etc
I cut a bit off the pedal support to push the assembly back and recycled the button clips from the windsurfer boom.These are the kind which you push down and slide to the next hole
